


y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas

by Poetry



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Family, Friendship, Gen, HIV/AIDS, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Capheus and Lito help each other bring to light the secrets they’ve kept from their families.</p>
            </blockquote>





	y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chicafrom3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/gifts).



> Thanks to aurilly and cyanoticfallacy for beta reading and to anyuensis for the insights on Catholicism. Warnings for discussions of past abuse, homophobia, drug trafficking, and HIV/AIDS.

**I.**

Lito finally got up the courage to ask, “Daniela, is anything else bad going to happen to you because of leaving Joaquin?”

Daniela looked up from a cardboard box of books – thick, glossy, written in English, probably textbooks from her college days in San Diego, Lito thought. She was finally moving in for real, bringing in her stuff, finding room on the shelves. The guest room would be hers now. “I don’t think he’s going to come after me again, if that’s what you mean.”

“If he tries to hurt you again, we’ll stop him,” Lito said, with more confidence than he really felt. “But is there anything else? Does he have any of your stuff?”

“No.” Daniela hesitated. “It’s not a big deal, so don’t freak out. But my dad won’t like it. He liked it when I was with Joaquin. Business connections, all that.”

“What kind of connections?” But Lito had a sinking feeling that he already knew. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone appear on the couch next to him. He caught a flash of red dust and colorful birds fighting over crumbs on a crooked road. One of the voices in his head, visiting. He steered his mind away. He needed to focus on Daniela right now.

Daniela looked at him sideways, the way she had the last time she talked about her family in the darkness of the restaurant, swirling the wine in her glass with little tilts of her wrist. But it was midday, now, and nothing about her face was hidden. “My father exports counterfeit drugs. And imports real ones. Joaquin’s business is more focused on the recreational kind. They buy Vicodin from him, sometimes.”

“Ask her what kind of counterfeit drug,” said the man next to Lito on the couch. It wasn’t Wolfgang or Will, but that was all he knew.

Lito said, “Counterfeit drugs? What kind?”

“Whatever people want.” Daniela looked down at her hands, her eyelashes lowering to obscure her eyes. “Sometimes it’s Viagra or Adderall. Sometimes it’s drugs that could save someone’s life. Pills for hepatitis C, AIDS, that kind of thing.”

Lito didn’t know how to respond to that. So he just said, “Hey. Do you want a hug?”

Daniela flashed a little smile and nodded. She joined Lito on his left, the opposite side from his visitor. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against his side. “I don’t think less of you for what your father does. I want you to know that.”

“Thanks,” Daniela said quietly. “He’s… I try to avoid him. All of his stupid power plays. I’ve made my own way in the world. I don’t need his help, and I don’t care what he thinks.”

“Could he make life difficult for you?” Lito said.

Daniela shrugged. “He’ll try to guilt me about it. Maybe threaten to write me out of his will unless I marry someone he approves of. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need his money. And I can always complain to my cousins in San Diego. They know what an old bastard he is.”

“Why don’t you go call them? Maybe it will help let off some steam.”

Daniela smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. I’ll go out on the balcony.” She squeezed him with a sideways hug of her own, then stepped outside, closing the glass door behind her.

Lito shifted to the right, and finally took a good look at his visitor. He was pretty sure he’d never seen the man before, but when their eyes met he smelled car exhaust and tasted lukewarm beer in his mouth, and found he was as familiar as someone he knew as a small child.

The man turned toward the balcony, then stood up and leaned against the glass. “Oh, wow. This is an amazing view.” He looked back over his shoulder, waved, and said, “Hello, by the way. My name is Capheus. I’m from Nairobi.”

“I’m Lito.” He gestured toward the view from the balcony. “This is Mexico City.”

Capheus's eyes fixed on Daniela. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Daniela.”

Capheus raised his eyebrows at Lito. “Who is she to you?”

Lito had to stop and think about that. He had gotten into a fight for Daniela, put his career on the line for her. She lived in his apartment, sometimes even shared his bed. But he didn’t have sex with her, and he wasn’t in love with her. He didn’t think there was a word for what Daniela was to him and Hernando. But he decided to say, “She’s my best friend.”

Capheus smiled. “My best friend’s name is Jela. He works for me on my bus.” Lito got a sense-memory of Jela coming to Capheus's little house when he and his mother first moved in, carrying steaming tea in tin mugs, talking in a rush about Capheus's new neighborhood and all the people he could meet there.

“You were interested in Daniela’s father’s drug traffic,” Lito said. “Why?”

The smile faded from Capheus's face. He moved away from the balcony and stood in front of Lito. “My mother has AIDS. Without medicine, she will die. But most of the AIDS drugs for sale in Nairobi are counterfeit. I don’t know which ones will save her or make her even worse. For a while I had a source for the real drugs, but not anymore. I don’t know what I can do for my mother now. I am trying to find a way.”

A cold feeling crawled over Lito’s skin. It was one thing to know what Daniela’s father did. It was another to see how his black market trade affected Capheus's life. He could feel Capheus's mother’s clammy sweat on his palm, hear the gasps of pain in her breath. Daniela’s life had been tangled in something deep and dark from her earliest years. But how could he help her? And what could he do for Capheus, who was half a world away?

“She might know something,” Capheus said, looking out at the balcony, where Daniela leaned on the edge and talked on the phone to one of her cousins, her hair whipping in the wind. “She grew up with this. She might know how to tell the difference between counterfeit and real drugs. She could find out.”

If Lito asked Daniela, she would want to know why. He could come up with a convincing lie. But after everything they’d done, everything she’d seen, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “I would have to tell her,” he said, gesturing to the two of them. “About this. And if I tell her, then I have to tell my boyfriend Hernando.”

Capheus was quiet for a minute. Lito could feel a struggle inside him, heard snatches of a melodious priest’s voice ringing out about what was natural and right. He didn’t know how this mind-sharing thing worked, but he thought about the feeling in his heart when he first met Hernando, and he’d seen right through every one of Lito’s acts to the man he really was, that sense of danger and terror and amazed joy, like the few seconds of skydiving before the parachute opens. _I love him,_ Lito thought, _and that is the most right and natural thing in this world._

Capheus nodded, and Lito felt something within the other man anchor itself deep, to a place where nothing would budge it loose. He said, “If I tell my mother and Jela, will you also tell the people you love?”

“Deal,” Lito said.

“Deal,” Capheus said. Then he blinked out of sight.

Lito sat back on the couch and shook his head in amazement. He’d never before known exactly how it felt to change someone else’s mind.

  


**II.**

Kala appeared as Capheus boiled water on the stove. She leaned over and sniffed the teabags in their mugs. “Oh! It’s chai!”

Capheus ducked his head. “I think you may have given me a taste for it.”

“More than one mug,” Kala said. “Who are you making it for?”

Capheus’ smile faded. “My mother is not feeling so well today. I’m going to bring her tea, with some left over for me and my friend Jela.”

“Oh no! What’s wrong?”

“My mother has AIDS, and I cannot get her the medicine she needs. The only pharmacies I can afford, you never know which pills are real and which ones will only make it worse.” The kettle began to whistle, and Capheus poured the water over the tea.

“If only you had a gas chromatograph, like I have in my lab,” Kala said. “I’d test the pills for you.”

Capheus closed his eyes and let the steam from the tea mugs waft into his face. Then he opened them again. “I will find another way. But thank you.”

There was a knock on the door. “Hey, Capheus! Let me in! I brought biscuits!”

Capheus raised his eyebrows at Kala. “I think I’d better let him in, don’t you?”

Kala laughed, and disappeared. Capheus came to the door and gestured for Jela to come in. “Stop yelling. My mother is resting in bed.”

Jela rubbed the back of his neck. “Eh, sorry. I wouldn’t want to disrespect the lady of the house, would I?” He showed Capheus the packet of biscuits.

“Custard creams! Her favorite,” said Capheus. “Perhaps she will forgive you. I’ll bring the tea, and you bring the biscuits.”

Shiro was already awake when they came to her, for which Capheus was grateful; he would have hated to wake her. She smiled, like she always did, no matter how much pain she was in. “Jela. How good of you to visit an old woman.”

“Old? You?” said Jela. “If you are old, then I must be middle-aged, a great patriarch.”

“Can you sit up?” Capheus said, offering his arm for support. She silently took his elbow and pulled herself up to a seated position. “I brought you tea. And Jela brought custard creams. You think you could eat one?”

Shiro’s eyes lit. “I think I could make an effort.”

Capheus and Jela pulled up chairs to Shiro’s bedside, and Capheus brought a napkin so Shiro wouldn’t get biscuit crumbs on the bed. They all drank their tea, then Jela said, “Is there some reason you invited me, Capheus? You sounded very serious when you asked me to come.”

In that moment, Lito appeared beside Capheus, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. Somehow Capheus knew that Lito was not the sort of man who usually sat on the floor. He finished eating a custard cream, soggy with chai, and said, “Yes, I wanted to speak to both of you.” Then his mouth went dry, and he had no idea what to say next.

Jela broke the silence. “Are you finally going to tell us how you beat up all those Superpower gangsters?”

“Yes.” Capheus looked down at his tea. Jela didn’t know yet that he – that Sun – that they had killed the rest of the gang. He should tell his friend, but he didn’t know how. He looked up at his mother. “Three weeks ago, right before Superpower attacked the van, I began to see and hear other people in my head.”

“Were they ancestors?” Jela raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying this is some sort of shaman thing?”

“Not ancestors,” said Capheus. “None of them are from Kenya. And they’re alive, right now, the same as you and me. Still, I think it is a kind of blessing. They have shown me some amazing things. One of them saved my life many times. Her name is Sun. I am not Van Damme. She is. She has the fighting spirit, as well as training and practice. She was with me, in my mind, when I fought Superpower.”

Lito looked up at Capheus sharply when he spoke about Sun. He had met her, too, then. Capheus wondered what the two of them had been like together.

“How many _ngoma_ are there?” Shiro asked. She didn’t sound disbelieving, just quietly interested.

“They’re not _ngoma_ ,” Capheus said. “Not ancestors, not spirits, just people. You don’t have to be a _ngoma_ to fight four men. You just have to be a remarkable person. That is why I feel blessed. I have a bond in my heart to seven remarkable people.”

“Then I see why it is happening now,” Shiro said. “This is a crossroads in your life, and God has sent you help so you may find your way.”

Jela was watching him closely. “Show me. I want to meet one of these people. Can they speak to us through you?”

Capheus nodded. He looked down at Lito, who nodded back. Then suddenly it was Lito in the chair and Capheus cross-legged on the floor. He wondered what Shiro and Jela saw when they looked at him now: leaning forward in the chair, elbows on his splayed thighs, taking up more room with his body than Capheus ever did. Lito had said he was an actor, and Capheus could see it now. He said, as if it were the opening line to a film, “Hello. My name is Lito. I’m from Mexico.”

“Now that’s just spooky,” Jela said.

“You’re not my son,” Shiro said, clutching at the blanket. “I know my son. You are someone else.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, ma’am,” Lito said, extending a hand, palm down. “Do you want Capheus back?”

“Wait,” said Jela. “Is he okay? What is it like for you, having him in _your_ head?”

Lito’s eyes slid toward Capheus. They didn’t really know each other, not yet. It was all so new. But Lito refocused and said, “It’s like meeting someone for the first time and realizing like you’ve known him all your life.”

“Thank you, Lito,” Shiro said, very steadily. Capheus could tell how forced that calm was. “I would like my son back now, please.”

“Of course.” And then Capheus was in the chair again. He stood up and hugged his mother.

Shiro clutched at his arms and shuddered. “What does it mean, Capheus?”

Capheus buried his face in her hair. “I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to find out. I have not always done right.”

“Is there anyone who can say he always has?” Shiro said.

Capheus laughed. “No.”

“Is he still here?” Jela asked. “That man, Lito?”

Capheus pulled away from his mother. Lito was gone. “No. He left.”

Jela leaned forward. “Tell me more about the Van Damme lady.”

“Yes,” Shiro said. “Tell us everything.”

Capheus settled back in his chair. “All right, then. It all started when I started to have these terrible headaches…”

  


**III.**

Lito took one step in front of a street cart selling tamales, and took his next step into a cramped apartment where Nomi was typing away at her laptop. Lito looked around at the shabby carpets, the peeling walls. “Where am I?”

Nomi looked up from her laptop. “My friend’s apartment in San Francisco.”

Lito looked over her shoulder, but he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. “What are you working on?”

“Trying to find another safe place where Riley can take Will,” Nomi said. “They can’t stay in one place for too long, or Whispers will catch up with them.”

Lito felt a twinge in his chest. He’d noticed Will’s absence in his mind, as if the radio had broken in his car and all his drives were suddenly too quiet. But he hadn’t thought about the details of what he and Riley were going through. Nomi was helping all of them, while Lito had been focused on his own problems, even after he understood about these connections he’d made. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just keep being you, Lito. As long as you’re in the public eye, Whispers can’t make you disappear without making a lot of trouble for himself.” Nomi looked up at him and smiled. “But if I think of something else you can do, I’ll let you know.

Lito had already made a promise to Capheus. Now he had another pact with Nomi. He felt these new bonds tightening all around him. It was not Lito’s habit to tie himself to others – every string could be pulled from both ends. But he couldn’t cut himself free from this. Didn’t want to, if he was honest with himself. “I’ll ask.”

Nomi disappeared. Lito decided he wasn’t all that hungry after all, and walked straight home. Hernando and Daniela would both be there. It was time to tell them.

When he came home, Hernando was in the bathroom drying his hair, Daniela in the kitchen blending one of her endless super-healthy kale smoothies. The din was unbelievable. “I’M HOME!” Lito bellowed.

Daniela poured her smoothie into a tall glass. “We know, dear.”

Lito leaned into the bathroom kissed Hernando on the cheek, which got him to put down the hair dryer and kiss back. He smelled like lotion and aftershave. “Hi, Lito.”

“Join me out on the balcony?” Lito said.

“Okay. But if my hair dries frizzy, I blame you.”

“Come, Daniela!” Lito called to her as they stepped out through the glass door.

It was too hot down on the street, but up here there was enough breeze to cool the sweat on his brow. Capheus appeared beside him, and immediately looked down over the side. “Wow!” he said. “Hello, Mexico City!”

Lito smiled. He was nervous, but he couldn’t help it. He was still awed by the view, himself. It never became backdrop. Capheus looked over, saw him smiling, and flashed a thumbs up.

Hernando and Daniela sat on the bench; Lito pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards. Capheus sat cross-legged on the floor next to the chair, the same positions as before, in a different place, with a different family. “So,” Lito said. “Do you want to know how I beat Joaquin in that fight?”

Their eyes widened. They leaned forward. Both of them had been teasing Lito about that, especially Daniela, who’d seen it. It was partly to poke fun, but also because they were confused. That Lito won the fight didn’t fit with what they knew about him. For it to be true, there had to be something fundamental about him he hadn’t shared with them. Both of them had had more than enough secrets in their lives, Lito knew. They deserved better from him.

Capheus reached up and clapped Lito on the back, a silent reminder that he was present. Lito thought of several things to say, then decided to go straight to the point. “This is going to sound weird. But I’m kind of psychic.”

Daniela thumped her head against the back of the bench and groaned. “Oh, come _on_ , Lito. Be serious for once.”

“I am serious! I’m psychically connected to seven other people in my head. One of them is a gangster in Germany. He’s the one who fought Joaquin, not me.”

Daniela rolled her eyes again, but Hernando saw something in Lito’s face that told him this was for real. “When did this start?”

“Do you remember, a few weeks ago, when I called you from the car and I was all…” Lito gestured vaguely.

“Ah.”

“It was a few days before that.”

“What did you do?” Daniela demanded.

Lito began, “I may have…”

“…Freaked out,” Hernando finished. “You did behave strangely around that time. More strangely than usual.”

“It was strange. And scary. But Hernando, it’s opened up my mind. And my heart,” Lito said, thinking of what Capheus said to his mother. “I wouldn’t have found the courage to do the right thing by Daniela, by you, if it hadn’t been for this. These people.”

“I thought there was something different about you. But I wasn’t sure,” Hernando said. He leaned forward so his forehead touched Lito’s, and their breaths mingled. “ _Y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas_ ,” he said. _And the things hidden inside you come back to light._

Lito kissed him. What else could he do? No matter how often he kissed this man, he always wanted another taste. When he pulled back, he saw Daniela smiling, as usual, and Capheus… surprised. No, amazed. Lito recognized it. He, too, had grown up Catholic. He remembered the first time he saw two men kiss like it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. It had rearranged his world.

“Who are these people?” Daniela said. “The ones you’re psychic with. Can we talk to one of them?”

“Like this,” Lito said, gesturing back and forth between them, “or on the phone?”

“What do you mean, like this?” Daniela said.

“We can visit each other in our heads, or we can share. Like Wolfgang did in the fight with Joaquin. He’s the one who threw the punches.”

“Like body snatchers,” Daniela said dubiously.

“No, of course not. He didn’t take over. I let him.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of someone else in your body,” Hernando admitted. “It’s your decision, Lito. But I would prefer the phone.”

“There’s someone visiting right now. I’ll ask him.” Lito turned to Capheus. “Do you have a cell phone?”

Capheus laughed and pulled one out of his pocket, a simple brick with a keypad. “Everyone in Nairobi has a cell phone.” He told Lito the number.

As Lito dialed, Daniela and Hernando stared at Capheus – or, to their eyes, the blank space in the air Lito had been talking to. For a moment, despite everything, Lito wondered if anyone would pick up. But Capheus raised the phone to his ear, and Lito heard his voice doubled, saying, “Hello? Lito?”

“It works,” Lito said, half-giggling with relief. “Hello, Capheus.”

“Let me talk to your Hernando,” Capheus said. “He seems to me a remarkable man.”

Lito passed the phone to Hernando, letting his fingers linger on the back of his hand. “Hello?” Hernando said, carefully, as if he’d never used a phone before.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Hernando,” Capheus said. An even stranger doubling: in Lito’s head he spoke Swahili, which he somehow understood as long as Capheus was with him, but the voice booming tinnily by Hernando’s ear said _Es un placer conocerle, Hernando,_ in accented but clear Spanish.

“Oh. Yes, hello. It’s Capheus, is it?”

“Yes.”

“And where are you, Capheus?”

“Nairobi, Kenya.”

“Oh. Wow.” Hernando fiddled with the arm of his glasses, tilting them up and down on his nose. He didn’t seem to know what to say next.

“What was that line you said to Lito?” Capheus said. “It sounded like it was from a poem.”

“It’s from my favorite poem. By Pablo Neruda. It’s about… looking at someone who’s in their darkest hour, _really_ looking, and realizing that even now, even as bad as it seems, there’s a whole world inside them. A world so full of life that you could never know it all in a hundred years.” Hernando looked at Lito the whole time he spoke.

Lito felt warmth spread through his whole body. Even before he had this, the cluster, whatever they were, Hernando had seen that in him. Had still seen it, even when Lito had been too cowardly to save his friend from going to her tormentor for his sake.

“I like the way you talk about art,” Capheus said. “You make me feel that if I read the poem, I could understand it, too, as deeply as you do. One day I will watch a movie with you and Lito, and you will tell me about the art, and he will tell me about the acting.”

“Watching a movie with a man in Kenya without leaving my living room,” Hernando said. “That’s… amazing.”

“That is what I think. Lito and the others see the confusion and the fear, and not the blessing. It is a great gift that Lito has. And now he must decide how he will use it. I think you will give him good advice.”

“I hope so.”

Capheus covered the phone with his hand and said to Lito, “May I speak to Daniela? About what her father does?”

Lito glanced at Daniela, canted sideways to listen to the conversation between Hernando and Capheus. “Right now?”

Capheus’s voice held fast. “My mother cannot wait.”

Lito thought of Capheus’s mother, so kind and protective of him. He nodded. “Hernando, pass the phone to Daniela, please.”

Daniela held Lito’s phone to her ear. “Hello, Capheus.”

“Hello, Daniela. Your hair looks nice today.”

Daniela’s hand flew to her freshly crimped hair. “Oh! You can see me!”

“Yes. Through Lito. I can feel the sun on my face. It is night in Nairobi.”

“That’s so cool,” said Daniela.

“Yes.” Capheus’s voice stayed warm, but firm. “Listen, Daniela. I need your help.”

“You need _my_ help? Why?”

Capheus said softly, “Because my mother needs drugs to treat her AIDS, and many of the drugs sold in Nairobi are counterfeit.”

Daniela’s face crumpled. She drew her knees up to her chest. “Did Lito tell you about my father?”

Hernando turned to Lito, his eyes wide. Lito nodded. Daniela had told Hernando, too, after she told Lito. He sat next to Hernando on the bench and whispered an explanation in his ear.

“No.” Capheus watched Daniela, his own face softening in the face of her pain. “I was visiting when you told Lito. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask if it were not so important.”

“No. Of course it’s important to you. I get that. I just… I try not to think about him. What he does. And I guess I’ve never seen for myself how much it hurts people.”

“It does a great deal of harm in my country,” Capheus said. “But maybe you can do something to help.”

Daniela let out a deep breath. Hernando put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Capheus gave him an approving look, though of course he couldn’t see it. She said, “The bar codes. I think. Those are the hardest for the counterfeiters to fake. We could find the real medication, send you a photo of the bar code.”

Capheus shook his head. “My phone is too basic.”

“Then you could copy it on a piece of paper. We’ll use a ruler, so you can get it down to the millimeter. If the bar code on the box doesn’t match, don’t buy it. It’s not a guarantee, but it makes the chances a lot better.”

Capheus’s face lit as Daniela spoke. “Oh, thank you, Daniela. That would be the world to me, if I could use it to find the medicine to make my mother better.”

“What kind of drugs is your mother on?” Daniela asked.

Capheus explained. Daniela nodded. “Those are common. My father’s people used to get empty boxes from the trash bins behind the hospital, as a reference for the fake packaging. We can do the same thing.”

“You are a good friend, Daniela.”

“Well, Lito’s a good friend. So I have to help any friend of his. Even psychic friends.”

All four of them laughed. Lito leaned against Hernando’s shoulder and felt him shake with giggles. Daniela said goodbye, and passed the phone to Hernando so he could, too. At the end of the phone call, Capheus disappeared from Lito’s sight.

“Is he still here?” Daniela said, looking back at the space where he’d been sitting.

Lito shook his head.

“Does he know about the side effects?” Hernando said gently. “Those drugs he and Daniela were talking about… you have also seen friends on those, yes?”

Lito nodded. Daniela stared at them, surprised. He met her eyes. “Hernando and I have always been careful with condoms. But both of us know other men who… weren’t. Or had lovers who weren’t.”

Daniela looked embarrassed. “Right. Of course.”

“It’s going to be hard on Shiro,” Lito said. “And on Capheus. Even with the right drugs.”

“Then we will be his friends,” Hernando said.

Daniela nodded.

Lito felt his body prickle with warmth. “Thank you.” He reached over Hernando to squeeze Daniela’s hand, pressed a kiss to his lover’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  


**IV.**

Lito appeared next to Capheus and wrinkled his nose. “What is that?”

Capheus covered his face with his hand. “Oh, God. Is it really that bad?”

Lito shrugged and smirked. “Sorry.”

Capheus smiled sheepishly. “It’s dinner for my mother. She has to take her medication with food.”

Lito smiled back. “She’s started on it already!”

“I bought it yesterday,” Capheus said. “The vendor kept looking at me when I held up my drawing against the bar codes on the boxes. But it matched. And that vendor is not too expensive.” He sniffed the pot on the stove. Yes, it was burned, but only on the bottom. He would make sure to eat the burned parts himself and save the rest for Shiro. He served some into a bowl, and took it with a cup of water to his mother’s bedside.

Her eyes fluttered open when she saw him. “Hello, son.”

“Hello, mother.” Capheus glanced at Lito, looking down at Shiro with a strange look on his face. “Lito is visiting. Is that okay?”

Shiro looked at the space where Capheus had, her eyes focused too low, around Lito’s collarbone. “Yes. Hello, Lito.”

“He is kneeling beside your bed now,” Capheus narrated. It struck him again how strangely humble it seemed for this proud, flashy actor to kneel on the floor of Capheus and Shiro’s little house. “Will you eat something?”

Shiro slowly pushed herself up. “Bring that here. It smells good.” Capheus gave her the bowl and spoon, and she ate gratefully. “Mmm, delicious.”

Capheus huffed a laugh. “It’s just ugali and cowpeas.”

“Enough for me.”

When she had enough for Capheus’s satisfaction, he gave her the water and her pill. He said, “You remember it was Lito and his friends who helped me get you this.”

Shiro took her pill with barely a grimace. “I remember. A remarkable story. Tell me about your friends, Lito.”

Lito looked up at Capheus. The connection between them widened, and Capheus felt from Lito the last thing he would have expected: a raw, burning fear. On the other side of Lito’s eyes, he was standing in a doorway, bracing to turn and run at any moment, as his father cursed him for _marica_ swine, and his mother who had sung him to sleep every night stared blankly and said nothing, not one word, in Lito’s defense.

Capheus was not sure if he was doing this right, but he did his best. He thought back to two days ago, on Sunday, when his mother had just enough strength to make it to Mass. The priest had spoken out against a gay man from Mombasa who had been on the news last week, and Capheus had whispered to his mother, _I do not think God makes mistakes when He creates people as they are, and I do not think His Son would turn away those who love one another – do you?_ And Shiro had prayed for a while and finally said, with her mouth set in quiet decision, _No._

The image of Shiro kneeling, her hands on her rosary, the moment when her face set and her heart changed, lodged in Lito’s mind like a key in a lock. He closed his eyes, then switched places with Capheus, so he stood beside Shiro’s bed with his hand on her shoulder, and Capheus knelt. “Daniela is my best friend, like Jela is for Capheus. And Hernando is the love of my life.”

Shiro looked up, searchingly, as if she could see Lito hidden inside Capheus’s face. “So they are family.”

“Yes.” Lito’s eyes were very warm.

Shiro fell asleep soon after that. She needed it. Capheus kissed her forehead and smoothed back her hair. He turned to Lito. “Is the movie ready?”

The scene shifted around them. They were in Lito’s apartment, Hernando and Daniela side-by-side on the couch across from a big TV. They had a bowl of popcorn. Capheus looked at the screen. He didn’t recognize the title.

“One of mine,” Lito explained. “Hernando insisted.”

Capheus grinned. “Oh, yes. I’m sure it was Hernando who insisted.”

“He did! He loves my movies.”

“You don’t need an excuse,” Capheus teased. “I want to see you as a big action hero.”

“Well, then, you will. Hernando will give the commentary. Right, Hernando?” Lito sat on the couch on Hernando’s other side, leaving room at the end for Capheus.

Back in Nairobi, Capheus settled on his own couch, but in Mexico City, Hernando was crooning along with the theme music for Lito’s movie, while Daniela said, “Hey, I have commentary too! The costumes on the actresses are _amazing_ in this movie. Even if none of the actresses are as good as me.”

Lito nudged Capheus with his shoulder. “Hey. Thank you.”

“For what?”

Lito flashed a smile, much smaller and shyer than the ones he gave Hernando and Daniela. “For sharing your family with me.”

Capheus watched Hernando and Daniela argue about the lead actress as she prowled on camera in her slinky dress. Then he nudged Lito back and said, “It is no less than you have done for me.” Capheus leaned back, and let the darkness in his house and the darkness in Lito’s apartment merge, and become the same place.

**Author's Note:**

> Some cultural and language notes, for your edification.
> 
> chai: Actually common in Kenya, along with other aspects of Indian cuisine. Kenya traded with India since before colonial times, and of course British colonizers brought more Indian food and drink with them.
> 
>  _ngoma_ : “spirit” in Kikuyu, one of the major indigenous languages of Kenya. We don’t actually know which tribe Capheus’s family is from, but I picked a likely one for the purposes of this fic.
> 
> side effects of HIV medication: HIV meds used on people with high viral loads, which is presumably what Shiro would take, have severe side effects. Without real medical care, Shiro is in for a very hard slog.
> 
> ugali and cowpeas: staple foods for the poor in Kenya. Ugali is a porridge made with cornmeal, millet, or sorghum, and cowpeas are protein-rich beans.
> 
> Finally, here is my own translation of Hernando’s favorite poem, the second of Neruda’s _Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair_.
>
>> In its dying embers, the light surrounds you.  
> Pale, rapt mourner, set here  
> against the old propellers of the twilight  
> that turn all around you.
>> 
>> Wordless, my friend,  
> alone in the solitude of this hour of the dead  
> and full of the fire’s many lives,  
> pure heiress of the day’s remains.
>> 
>> The sun’s branches fall onto your dark dress.  
> The night’s great roots  
> grow suddenly from your soul,  
> and the things hidden inside you come back to light,  
> so that a pale blue city,  
> to which you just gave life, can feed itself.
>> 
>> Oh magnetic and grand and fecund slave  
> of the circle that makes black and gold happen in their turn:  
> rise up, try, and accomplish a creation so alive  
> that its flowers succumb, and it is full of sadness.


End file.
